


I'm still here

by Miryel



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sad, Starker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 12:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18591061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miryel/pseuds/Miryel
Summary: "I can't explain something you can't understand," says Peter, and he knows that phrase is a flame that starts at the end of a fuse. But he says it. Because that's how it is. Explaining the dead without having lived it, is like telling love to those who have never experienced it.[Starker - not EndGame spoiler - angst/sad]





	I'm still here

"How is it like to die, Peter?"  
It is like a large bubble of water that collapses and collapses, hissing. With the painful slowness of a wound that breaks and splits the soul in two and then bleeds. It is like the summer night that brings sultriness and doesn't give breath, nor sleep, nor a smile. Dying is like falling asleep, with the difference that you realize it. Dying means to lose oneself, and you can't do nothing. Dying means to discover that life has not sense, after all. Nothing at all.  
"I don't remember," he said, because if Tony wants to know, it's only because he's afraid he has suffered. Peter knows, and doesn't tell him. Death is not told, because at his young age he should not even imagine it how looks like. Because at his young age, death is a distant thing that should not even be hypothesized. But Peter is no longer young. Not like it used to be. He lost his innocence, when he losing himself. He has lost something to believe in, now that he has returned and no longer lives life full, because he fears death. He knows what it is. He knows it's nothing. He knows it was nothing when he died. He knows he still is, even if he exists again.  
"Because you didn't really die," says Tony, but he doesn't believe it, and Peter knows it. They are lies, which he tells himself. Madness, lies, ghosts that conceal the terror of seeing him disappear again, this time forever. Peter lets himself slip into Tony's arms, clings to something. He feels the human warmth that he had lacked for too long. They didn't make love because Tony doesn't want to. Not yet because Tony doesn't believe it. Tony sees him and he has him in his arms, but it is as if it were not so. You're a dream?, Tony's eyes say, and Peter answer that he isn't. He says it with a kiss, just because it's the only way he has to prove it. Tony asks no questions, and Peter does not elite. Other things speak for them. One of these is silence. Interlace his fingers with hims; he looks for the difference between his longer phalanxes and finds it with a flicker amused at holding back a tear. He puts his head on his chest and closes his eyes. He lips and kiss the forehead and a light hand caresses his head, and Peter is trapped in his chest. He desires this in his life. He would like to forget death and all the rest. But Peter is off; it's half. Half here and the other on Titan, waiting for someone to save him.  
"You don't want to tell me," says Tony, the slight bitter veil of those who have understood too much.  
"I can't explain something you can't understand," says Peter, and he knows that phrase is a flame that starts at the end of a fuse. But he says it. Because that's how it is. Explaining the dead without having lived it, is like telling love to those who have never experienced it.  
"I can't understand?"  
"No," he answers, and doesn't look at him. He stays like that, with his cheek pressed against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. The solid and real rhythm of a time that never passed from the dead. That did not exist. "You can not. I can't either. No one can."  
The clock ticks; it marks the moment and marks the silence, for minutes, hours, whole days. Peter no longer has the knowledge of time, yet he is convinced that every minute is a grain of precious sand; a fragment of rare stone to be kept in the chest, whenever death reminds him that sooner or later it will be his again. He cannot escape forever. Tony sighs, and seems to hold him more tightly, and every moment Peter passes, he knows he's slipping away from him.  
"Peter ..." he calls and stops, when he receives no answer. Tony gives him another kiss on the forehead, hot as hell, burns his flesh. "Are you still there?"  
Peter doesn't answer immediately. He opens his eyes and does not look at it. The caress in his hair is less real than he may believe, yet it is there in his arms, in the only cage he would ever be in. He holds a lump in his throat; he sends it down and it hurts the soul. He is there, cradled by Tony's chest as he rises and falls, his mind too far away, convinced that he has never really returned from Titan.  
He closes his eyes, and only hopes that life will soon return to belong to him, because he still has too many things to heal. One of these is the desire to stay exactly where he is, without slipping away from what has come back to belong to him.  
"Yes, Tony. I'm still here."

THE END


End file.
